Reality advances

The opening show at CMoDA features the work of Mexican electronic composer Murcof, and Simon Geilfus, an artist from the Europe-based AntiVJ. Zou Hong / China Daily

A groundbreaking exhibition at the China Millennium Monument Museum of Digital Arts highlights the importance of these media. Chen Nan reports.

There is a transparent, panoramic screen placed in front of the stage on which images slowly show up and disappear, responding to electronic sounds, while beams of light seem to float in the darkness.

The 20-minute show is presented by Mexican electronic composer Murcof, and Simon Geilfus, an artist from the Europe-based AntiVJ.

The audiovisual presentation opened AV (Audio Visual) & AR (Advanced Reality), an art exhibition at the China Millennium Monument Museum of Digital Arts (CMoDA). It was warmly received by the audience.

In the underground space of China Millennium Monument, contemporary art gets digital. Sounds issue from a dozen video installations and are complemented by surreal visual images.

The idea of building China's first digital art center was born in 2009. The 4,000-square-meter space has a circular 2,000-square-meter corridor and three cinemas. It serves as a platform for interactive and experimental art, and design and technological development.

"The public isn't really sure what digital art is yet. That's why we have CMoDA today," says Chen Caiyun, CMoDA's manager.

"It's a symbolic act to be here," says Shane Walter, co-founder and creative director of onedotzero, a 15-year-old international digital art and design organization, known for its annual onedotzero-adventurers in motion festival.

With eight members from his organization, Walter was in Beijing as the co-curator for the opening exhibition of CMoDA that presented a selection of installations, programs and live audiovisual performances.

"Digital culture is gaining global recognition and it's with great insight and timing that this is opening now," Walter says. "I firmly believe the revolution starts now. The people who have grown up with the technology and tools will have the greatest impact. It's almost second nature to them," he continues.

"My generation is very much the transition generation, switching from analogue to digital, learning to work, think and create differently. I believe that the situation is the same in China. We hope the collaboration between onedotzero and CMoDA will be a long one."

According to the curator, AV & AR refers to the changes in digital production and advanced ways of seeing the world.

The AV program presents 14 shorts films from China and international artists, such as Robotica, Ladymation, City States - 17 hours of exciting productions in total.

At a time when more of the images we see every day are digital, the documentary series, Creative Future, offers understanding of how this area has developed and is likely to evolve in the future.

"In the last 10 to 15 years, digital art has been a very isolated but exciting field in China. But now more people are aware of the technology, and of how digital imagery is encroaching upon their lives," says Fei Jun, 42, a Chinese new-media artist who studied in the United States and is a professor of digital media at the Central Academy of Fine Arts.

"Personally, I am interested in the intersection of virtual space and physical space."

Fei's artwork, 798 Talk Show, is an interactive billboard project designed for Beijing's 798 art zone, that's displayed at CMoDA. Using text messaging, viewers are able to chat with and control the emotional expressions of animated characters in a virtual 798 art district.

Many major galleries, art centers and famous artists and curators have been added to the backdrop as the artist processed his artwork.

Equally spectacular pieces by other Chinese artists are featured in the exhibition. There are also dazzling examples of data visualizations, a new medium that translates complex information into gorgeous and easily understandable digital images.

The AR series of multimedia exhibition has 10 installations from Chinese and foreign artists, including Wang Zhenfei, Wang Luming, Joanie Lemercier and Lab212. These explore light, the origin of man and virtual and real interfaces.

Meanwhile, three cinemas, with a capacity of 200 to 400 people, show original Chinese visual works.

"Technology gave birth to digital art and design. We've done research at China's universities and talked with digital artists, which informed us we need to have such a digital art world, following the global digital trend. CMoDA will be about innovation, and discovering new talent and new ideas from the digital world," Chen says.

"The challenge is to keep presenting great works to a burgeoning audience worldwide. We are excited about what the next 10 years will bring to the digital art field in China and how our the digital art field will influence our artistic consumption and our everyday lives," Chen says.

One big draw of CMoDA is that viewers can get firsthand experience with interactive and experimental art, and design and technological development. Photos by Da Wei / For China Daily

(China Daily 12/30/2011 page20)